I wrote this in May 2018. It's one line and it's never been more relevant.
"By thinking you have divine wisdom or are simply smart, you solidify your place in the pit of fools."
2025 context
Especially true now when everyone with a ChatGPT subscription thinks they're an expert in everything.
The access to instant answers has created a generation of people who confuse retrieval with understanding. They can generate a coherent paragraph on any topic in seconds and mistake that fluency for mastery. But fluency without friction isn't learning — it's performance.
The pit of fools has never been deeper or more crowded. The people who actually know things are the ones who still say "I don't know" regularly. They ask questions instead of generating answers. They sit with uncertainty instead of reaching for the first plausible-sounding response.
Wisdom isn't knowing the answer. It's knowing the weight of the question.